Category — Friday Blog Roundup

Samantha Brick, who was vilified this year for her article announcing her beauty to the world had a new article in the Daily Mail this week recounting her struggles with infertility.  She is — if nothing else — deeply, brutally honest, holding nothing back, which sometimes is the way things need to be said in order to make the point heard.  I was struck by this passage:

In the meantime friends continued to get pregnant, and their gleeful news – these days emblazoned all over social media networks – is unutterably difficult to witness. You acquire a poker face when friends ask how things are going. I learned early on that when they inquire, they’re not actually that interested in the answer. If they’re fortunate enough to be a mother, it is awkward for them if you dare share the feelings of longing and inadequacy that dog you through fertility investigations. If they are staunchly child-free, then any talk that is too emotional or sentimental compels them to change the subject.

The comments are what you’d expect on the article (hint: don’t read them) and the end of the article veers very sharply into territory that feels snatched down from a vision board.  (Before you spear me for knocking positive thinking, I am a fan of reframing how you view an event or the world as well as how you process information.  For me, that work comes after the fact vs. beforehand.  But you should know that I’m also fairly pessimistic in general so feel free to ignore me.)  But the middle of the article unpacks the way infertility affects friendships.  I thought it was an interesting read.

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Once again, it’s Black Friday and once again, nothing I buy is on sale.  Is Jon Ronson’s new book massively discounted for the day?  Is there a special price for the final House DVD so we can finish off the series?  Are my favourite bands offering their songs for half price on iTunes?  No?  Then Black Friday, I dismiss you.

I really do wish that Kindle would do a 24-hour book frenzy where every book in the Kindle store would be $2 and you could purchase as many as you want.  I could see myself developing a finger injury from all the button pushing if that ever happened.

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I found my dream house on Hooper’s Island.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Holidays” (Happiness at the Core)
• “Would it Be Worse If He Was Older?” (My Bubba)
• “The End” (The Future Fords)
• “The Roller Coaster of IVF” (Nuts in May)
• “Coping with Infertility, Loss, and Winter Holidays” (Resolve)
• “Sometimes? Life is Hard to Define” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “How Can We Educate the Public about Infertility?” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “Creating Family” (Serenity Now!)
• “Untitled” (Infertile Myrtle)
• “Work Sucks (I Know)” (Dear Finley)
• “Transfer Day” (The A.R.T. of Baby Making)
• “Private Pain in the Public Sector” (Still Standing Magazine)

Okay, now my choices this week.

If You Don’t Stand for Something has a moving post about death and the way each family deals with loss.  She writes, “If someone apologizes to me for “my loss”, I feel like a fraud because it’s really Chris’s loss. Honestly, it’s my loss by proxy, by marriage. It’s like being thrown on stage for a play but you don’t know the lines and you are left standing there awkwardly center stage under the hot lights. There was this moment where I didn’t know what to do because I don’t know how their family deals with death.”  In other words, she knows how her family mourns a death, but when you partner with someone, you sign up for mourning a death on their family’s terms.  I thought it was enlightening.

Scrambled Eggs has a post about how infertility silently affects her marriage that has a deeply frank ending, “But I know I’m too insecure to do that. And he is to kind and loyal to leave. And so we continue to go through the motions and pretend everything is ok, night after uncomfortable night.”  It is a gorgeous, wistful post.

Lastly, Telling a Different Story has returned to tell her story.  She’s an old blogger with a new space, and she travels through time with a recent post writing about the joy of discovering she is pregnant and then moving to the next page: “Pregnant at least 7 times I could tell this story 7 different ways.  All with the same ending.  I do not become a parent at the end.”  It’s an amazing post; a really powerful post.

The roundup to the Roundup: A post about infertility by Samantha Brick.  I wish e-books were discounted for the holidays so I could buy myself gifts.  I found my dream house.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 16th and November 23rd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

My great-aunt died this week.  She was very old, but I wasn’t expecting the call so when it came, I spent a few hours feeling very numb.  I still feel numb.  It took two hours for the words to sink in before I started crying.

I don’t even know how to write about it.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• For the first time ever… there were none.  Can we do better this week?

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled has a post about why she doesn’t like November.  It’s not just the passing of her unfulfilled due date.  It’s the greyness, the cold, the rush to Christmas.  It is about the way grief has of anchoring you to a time period.  She writes, “Sometimes I feel a bit funny, mourning the baby who never was born — the child who never drew a breath, let alone grew up —  the future I looked forward to that never came to pass. I know my grief is real and legitimate. But sometimes I feel like I’m still stuck back in 1998… while all around me, more and more of my peers are not just in the thick of parenting, but becoming grandparents.”  There’s a beauty amid the melancholy of her annual post.

Glow in the Woods has a post by Still Life with Circles about visiting fortune tellers.  It begins: “I root for each fortune teller I meet.  Say her name. Lucy. Lucia. Say it. Mention her.”  It is about finding those tiny moments of comfort when you’re in mourning, grabbing them from whatever direction they come.  And the one she finds at the final psychic is amazing.  You will read the end of the post with your breath held.

Kmina’s Blog has a post about her lack of blogging and how it ties into a difficult time she’s having with her son, but it is so much more than that.  It is about giving yourself permission to feel what you’re going to feel.  For everyone who has sensed that they’re not up to the task of parenting or who feels guilty complaining based on promises you made yourself before you got into the situation, this post is for you.  Because it’s actually one of the most brilliant, honest things I’ve read this week (and yes, I know it was from the week before, but I didn’t read it until last Friday afternoon).

Lastly, Aerotropolitan Comitissa has a very funny, heartfelt post about teaching her son patience (and discovers that she has a budding little blogger on her hands).  I especially loved this moment: “At this point we have a little musical lesson centered around that well-known prayer – ‘Lord, grant me the serenity…’  I point out to him that this case falls into the ‘things I cannot change’ basket rather than the ‘things I can,’ because he does not yet always have ‘the wisdom to know the difference’.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Saying goodbye to my great-aunt.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 9th and November 16th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Has anyone seen Magic Mike?  Could somebody ruin it for me?

I was waiting in line on Wednesday morning, and the cashier and the woman in front of me were discussing male stripping.  I was invited into the conversation, even though I have never seen a stripper perform. (Is that unusual?  Am I really in the minority here that I’ve never been to a strip club?)  The cashier recommended that I run, not walk, to the Red Box and rent Magic Mike.  Why?  I don’t know.  I mean, I just wanted to purchase some aluminum foil; I wasn’t actually expressing any sadness over having never been to a strip club.

But the cashier intrigued me when she turned to the other woman and said, “you know how there’s the first part that you totally know about, and then that thing happens, you know what I’m talking about, that thing happens which changes everything.  It was just such a surprise.  That’s why she needs to watch it.  For the second part.”

I was not aware that Magic Mike contained such intense plot twists.

Okay, so ruin it for me.  What is this thing?

And am I really the only adult female who has never been to a strip club?

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A 2012 Creme de la Creme update: we now have 109 entries on the list.  We’re trucking towards that December 15th hard deadline of being on the list.

For everyone who has already submitted early, thank you.  For everyone who has already blogged about it or tweeted about it or Facebooked about it or Pinterested it or Google+ed it or emailed about it… THANK YOU.

For everyone who hasn’t submitted a post from 2012 yet, what are you waiting for?  Take some time this weekend to skim your archives and then carefully read this post and learn how to get on the list.   I want every single person in the community on it.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Ending Fertility Treatment Equated with Madness” (Silent Sorority)
• “Will it be Fate or Destiny” (Silent Sorority)
• “My Visit to the Psychic (Part Two)” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Kathy and Lori!
• “A Perfectly Spooky Moment Monday” (The Infertility Voice)
• “An Honest Discussion of SET” (Miss Conception)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ has a story about a barren lioness she saw while on vacation.  She writes, “But that said, it was charming to watch the cubs gather arround their barren aunt, play with her, lie next to her, show tactile affection.  She had a very comfortable place in this family, a place perhaps that some of us (the human barren aunts) don’t always find.”  It made me think about the roles we all play in our families; the ones we’d like to play and the ones that others allow us to play.

An Unwanted Path has a fabulous post about being in this no man’s land of primary infertility with children, pointing out the obvious that a word needs to be created since when she tries again, she is neither experiencing what she experienced before kids nor does she fit the definition of secondary infertility.  She explains, “There’s a lot out there on how it feels to suffer from primary infertility, and secondary infertility, parenting afterward, and even about the decision to live child free. I don’t see a lot about the in between. It feels a bit like no man’s land.”  Plus it has this brilliant line: “So, it’s true that infertility doesn’t define me; but it did help create me.”  Seriously, read the whole post.

It is What It is (or Is It?) has a very interesting post about pregnancy after infertility, and how her own fears are affected by the off-hand remarks of others.  Common pregnancy commentary on things such as how the woman is carrying the baby as well as everyday questions become tied into all of her thoughts about the pregnancy itself and what it took to achieve it.

Lastly, Flamingo House Happenings has a post that is so fantastic about the passion we bring to non-passionate topics.  It is understandable that when you bring up a hot-button issue that you get a hot response.  But she dissects the experience of putting up something non-controversial and receiving an inflamed response regardless.  She writes, “In today’s hyper-active internet, no topic is safe any more.  Post a recipe, someone’s going to have something negative to say about it.  Post a list of favorite things, someone’s going to call you out for missing something.  Misuse a comma and you’re fucked. An apostrophe out of place and you’re even more fucked.”  It is such a great post; you need to read it in full.

The roundup to the Roundup: Am I the only person who hasn’t gone to a strip club?  Update on the 2012 Creme de la Creme.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 2nd and November 9th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

I could talk about Hurricane Sandy and how we spent the two days that we couldn’t leave the house, but I will tell you instead about the dream I had as the storm began overhead on Sunday night because it involves an enormous bear penis.

So.

In my dream, the Hawk of Achill is circling above our town, except it doesn’t look like our town.  It is a lush, green landscape as found in the Maritimes or Ireland, and the town is in a valley, surrounded by verdant hills.  The hawk is enormous.  At one point he lands outside our kitchen window and each flame-coloured feather is the size of a small bush.  I seem to be the only person in town who is concerned that the hawk keeps circling over the school playground, and the explanation everyone has for this behaviour is that there is a bronze mouse statue — about six feet in length — that has been placed on the playground.  The Hawk of Achill thinks this is a real mouse and is therefore circling, but I’m terrified he’s going to carry off one of the kids who is climbing on the statue or playing near it.

As I’m watching the hawk circle, he descends several feet above the school and transforms into an enormous, floating bear.  And this bear whips out his enormous bear penis and urinates on the town.  It is mostly hitting the trees and hills, but all the residents around me agree that the hawk, in the form of a bear with an enormous penis, releases the contents of his bladder on the school playground and our children frequently.

Still, I seem to be the only person who is concerned.

Then the dream switches and I am hanging out with Zora Neal Hurston, and she is teaching me how to make a chocolate pie called Sister’s Pie which her sister taught her how to make.  And… that’s pretty much all I remember.

Freud?

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A 2012 Creme de la Creme update: we now have 95 entries on the list.  We’re trucking towards that December 15th hard deadline of being on the list.

For everyone who has already submitted early, thank you.  For everyone who has already blogged about it or tweeted about it or Facebooked about it or Pinterested it or Google+ed it or emailed about it… THANK YOU.

For everyone who hasn’t submitted a post from 2012 yet, what are you waiting for?  Take some time this weekend to skim your archives and then carefully read this post and learn how to get on the list.   I want every single person in the community on it.

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Eleven years ago, a friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer.  Her daughter had two guinea pigs, and the smell of the rodents made her sick after chemotherapy, so I offered to take them and I made them my classroom pet.  I taught middle school English, so classroom pets didn’t really fit into any lesson plans, but the kids loved them.  I had all of my desks in a circle, and we would close the door and allow the guinea pigs to run free.  They mostly sat in the center of the room, turning around to look at all the students.  And sometimes they’d walk up to a kid’s desk and the kid would hold the guinea pig in his or her lap for a bit during class.  These guinea pigs shat EVERYWHERE and the carpet in my classroom needed to be replaced by the end of the year.

I haven’t spoken to my friend in about four years.  I learned through a mutual friend that she died last week from the cancer that she started treatment for eleven years ago.  I wanted to tell a story about her, but it came out as a story about her guinea pigs instead.

Let me start over.

On the day that I learned that we were down to a few dollars in our savings account and I needed to find some job that could be done from home a few hours a week, I bumped into my friend in the dentist’s office.  Without even knowing how desperate I was for a job, she offered to hire me to do some work for her right there in the dentist’s waiting room.  I worked for her for about two years until I was fairly steady in my freelance writing work.  She literally took me from the first day when I realized we were in need until a little after the day we were standing on our own financially.  Because that’s the sort of person she was.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “An Accidental Gift” (By the Brooke)
• “To Mom or Not To Mom” (The Infertility Voice)
• “To Mom or Not To Mom” (Silent Sorority)
• “Proper to Grow Wise in” (Mrs. Spit)
• “50% of X Ends in Y” (Write Mind Open Heart)
• “Defcon 5 or Just a Little Off the Edges Please” (Expecting to be Expecting)
• “Get Your Bologna Out of My Vag” (Stupid Stork)
• “Recapping the #ALIMomSalon This Week” (The Infertility Voice)
• “Infertility and Extremes” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “The Business of Being in the Business” (Single Infertile Female)
• “Your Child Only Has 3 Months to Live” (Rasta Less Traveled)
• “What Would Cthulhu Do?” (Nuts in May)
• “Characters in Our Own Stories” (The Smartness)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Slaying, Blogging, Whatever has a sweet post about saving her son’s voice mails when she misses his phone call at work and playing them.  I was drawn into the post due to our shared feelings on e-reading, but it was the ending of the post that made me smile.

Serenity Now has a beautiful post about life after her D&E.  It’s about trying to find peace with the question of pursuing more treatments with the embryos she has on ice.  She writes, “And, if I’m being truthful, I am tired. Tired of putting my life on pause, wondering if we should plan for that trip next spring because maybe I’ll be pregnant and won’t be able to travel then. Tired of interrupting my running training programs because I need to slow my running down or stop running altogether, because my clinic tells me to “take it easy” during the 2ww. Tired of not being able to set long term running/career/life goals, because things might change if we end up pregnant and with a baby.”  It’s about not losing sight of the things she wants to do in addition to adding to her family.  To not placing one goal in front of all others.  Please go read the whole thing.

Lastly, Magpie Musing has a post about the far-reaching effects of endometriosis and Hilary Mantel’s decision to live child-free after infertility.  She quotes an article about Mantel pointing out that the decision doesn’t affect a single moment in time: “Of course, it follows that if you’re not a mother you’re not going to be a grandmother, but that’s not something you think of in your thirties. So the loss keeps changing its shape.”  I was so drawn to that turn of phrase: the loss keeps changing its shape.  Magpie brings together the article with an additional post and muses on the possible futures she hadn’t considered.

The roundup to the Roundup: The Hawk of Achill is urinating on my town with a giant bear penis.  Update on the 2012 Creme de la Creme.  Goodbye to my friend.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 26th and November 2nd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Where do you stand on reading someone’s private journal after they’re gone?  Will you read your loved one’s journals if you find them upon going through their personal possessions after death?  Would you be okay (once you’re gone) of someone finding your old journals and reading them?  Not the words of your public blog, but the words that you’ve written in private paper journals, only known by you.

What about the journals of a celebrity?  If the family chose to publish them upon someone’s death, would you read them, or would you eschew the entries unless the publication of the diary was the expressed wishes of the deceased?  If you were a celebrity, do you think the public would have a right — especially if you influenced popular culture — to understand you better after you’re gone and read your private thoughts?

Where do you stand on journals post death?

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Screw You” (Hakuna Matata)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Journey to the Finish Line has a post about graduating from her fertility clinic.  It is bittersweet, saying goodbye to a place she never wanted to be and yet a place that has changed her completely.  She writes: “Today was my final ultrasound at the RE’s office. I walked in to a half full waiting room wondering where all of these couples were on their quest for parenthood, how long they have been on this path. I wished them all luck, silently. Then we waited.”  I smiled reading this post.

The Road Less Travelled has a response to the Huffington Post piece about mothers being in photographs, namely that it applies to a lot of women, whether parenting or not.  That some people have a tendency to always be taking pictures of others but don’t step up to have their picture taken, admitting they don’t want how they look at the moment documented.  She implores adult women to step in front of the camera, allow themselves to be seen, especially if they are other child-free women.  She asks at the end of the post an important question: “If you disappeared tomorrow, what sort of photographic record would remain of your life?“

Two posts looking back on a series of years caught my brain this week.  No Kidding in NZ has a post documenting ten year jumps to her 50th birthday.  Patience is Not My Virtue has a post on her anniversary looking back at a relationship.  I loved the rhythm of both these posts.

Lastly, Child Bearing Hips has a beautiful post about a family she knows who is moving from their home because it holds too many difficult memories.  She looks back at what has occurred in her house, how her daughter died in that house and her ashes are buried in the yard, and yet it is also the home where she can mark where she lived out favourite memories from her marriage.  It is the saddest days and the happiest days all mixed into one space, and she cannot imagine ever not living in that space despite understanding the need some people have to leave places behind.

The roundup to the Roundup: How do you feel about reading someone’s diary (or having yours read) after a death?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 19th and 26th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.